Starting Points for Program Evaluation in Outdoor & Experiential Education

[#Why Why program evaluation?] - it has become increasingly important for outdoor and experiential education organizations to demonstrate clear evidence of effectiveness...

[tools.html Tools, instruments, & questionnaires] - a list and details of instruments recommended for use in outdoor and experiential education program evaluations

[/html/NeillGass2001EvaluationNeedsAssessmentforAEE6pageversion.doc Needs assessment for program evaluations] (.doc) - to get underway, if you complete this, it will help to focus and plan your program evaluation efforts

[/research/effectsizes.html Why use effect sizes instead of significance testing for program evaluation?] - Effect sizes are underutilized in program evaluation; significance testing is overutilized</font>

Why Program Evaluation?

It has become increasingly important for outdoor and experiential education organizations to demonstrate clear evidence of effectiveness in achieving desired goals for two main reasons: necessity and morality.

Conducting program evaluation does not guarantee the quality of a program, but high quality programs are more likely to be engaged in program evaluation.

Reason #1: Necessity - Because you have to!

State, federal and even private funding for intervention programs increasingly requires rigorous program evaluations to be conducted. Thus, conducting program evaluations is becoming a necessity for many programs.

Reason #2: Morality - Because you want to!

There is also a moral argument that it is a responsibility of those who design and conduct the programs to be rigorous in ensuring the best possible experiences are provided for participants. Just as with safety, for which an outdoor organization is expected to provide best-practice management of risk, so too there is a psycho-educational responsibility for providing high quality experiences for participants. In this day and age, this should probably include the conduct of peer-reviewed research and formal program evaluation.

There are several other motivations for research and evaluation (see [researchresearch.html#Hierarchy 7 stage hierarchy]), but necessity (external motivation) and morality (internal motivation) are the two major ends of the motivational spectrum underlying efforts to conduct program evaluation.